Fate, Destiny, and Other Kinds of Hell
by Savendia
Summary: At six years old, watching his dad and Dean clean up after a job, Sam remembered asking Dean about the "pretty people on the walls."


I guess I'm a bit late with this, but it's something I've been toying and fussing with for awhile. Throwback to seasons 4 through 5. Feedback is love, because I've been rewriting this fic for about a year and a half and I'm still not sure it sounds right. :)

Disclaimer: All belongs to Kripke... for now... ;)

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><p>When Sam was little, he believed in angels. At six years old, watching his dad and Dean clean up after a job, Sam remembered asking Dean about the "pretty people on the walls."<p>

Dean had grinned. "They're windows, Sammy, see? You can look through it."

"But who're the pretty people?"

"Really nice people, Sammy."

"That's why they're pretty?"

"I guess so, Sammy. All angels are pretty."

"Oh."

And then Dean left to help John sweep up the salt and push a few pews back into place. Sam was left to stare at the stained glass windows with a child's naiveté.

Really nice people, Dean had said. Dean would know, Sam supposed, considering. Dean was really nice, too; well, except when Sam wanted to play with his army men. But that was okay. Even really nice people couldn't be expected to be really nice people _all_ of the time.

OOO

It was demons again. The worst ones always were.

Sam glanced around the room with cold eyes. He didn't want to think about the woman and her baby in the middle of the floor – namely because they still hadn't found the rest of the baby.

Probably they never would.

Later, after they had salted and burned the bones, Dean started laughing.

Sam shot his brother a disbelieving look. "Dude. What could you possibly find funny about this?"

Dean shrugged expansively with his shovel. "Musta been one hell of a fall."

"What?"

"Lucifer. Beezelbub. The Devil himself. Must have been one hell of a fall to go from harps and fluffy clouds to this."

"That's not funny." Sam patted more dirt onto the grave and straightened up, regarding his brother. "Do you think so?"

It was Dean's turn to look confused. "Um, yeah Sam," he said in his best my-brother-is-an-idiot voice, "I think the Devil's a pretty fucking nasty son of a bitch."

"No… Harps and fluffy clouds. Angels. Do you think there's such a thing as angels?"

"Dude, that's like asking if there's such thing as unicorns or, dunno, fat naked babies shootin' people in the heart with love." Dean clutched dramatically at his heart and adopted a patronizing, sing-songy tone that put Sam instantly on the defensive.

"Yeah…" They started back to the car in silence, and Sam let the quiet lie between them until all the defensiveness had drained away from him and the hope had slunk back in. Then he spoke: "but maybe… I mean, demons had to come from somewhere. There's lore."

Dean snorted. "Listen to yourself, Sammy. Angels? Really?"

"Yeah," Sam muttered. He cast his eyes to the sky for a moment. In the nighttime darkness he could just make out a few fluffy-looking clouds. "Dunno what I'm thinking."

OOO

"Don't say it. Don't even."

Sam snorted softly and smiled to himself, and looked away from his grumpy brother. Angels. Honest to God (literally!) angels.

Dean had gone to Hell, but angels, real _angels _had fished him back out. And okay, they probably didn't carry harps and, according to Dean's description, they didn't wear white robes and halos, but they were _angels_! Powerful, and sure to be on the right side.

They lived in a seriously fucked up world, but maybe it wasn't as shit as they'd thought.

And suddenly, to Sam, everything felt possible.

OOO

Castiel stared unblinkingly into Sam's eyes, and only through force of training and long habit did Sam suppress a shudder. The angel _knew_. He didn't know how, or how much, but Castiel knew something, and anything was too much in this game.

Dean was already suspicious, and Sam forced a smile to his face for his brother's benefit.

"The longer we wait the harder this thing'll be to track," he said brusquely, and turned his attention back to the pile of weapons he was loading into a duffel.

Dean shot a look at his angel, but said nothing. "Yeah, let's head out."

Castiel vanished before they reached the car, and Sam breathed a quiet sigh of relief, feeling some of the tension ease from the air.

The angel may have saved his brother, but he was goddamn _creepy_.

OOO

Uriel was even creepier, and at least this time Dean agreed. They shot each other inscrutable looks and made faces behind the angel's back, and for the first time in a long time Sam felt like a little brother again.

Then Uriel turned around and gave Dean "divine orders," and Dean became angry and confused and withdrawn, and Sam became angry and confused and lonely and he had never hated anyone quite as much as he hated the angels at that moment.

OOO

"And you know Dean, you can't _run_ from _destiny_. You can't _hide_ from _fate_."

Sam looks up at Dean, who is watching Zachariah with an expression that terrifies him because it looks almost…

"Dean, please."

Almost beaten.

One soft word, one right word, is enough to wipe the dangerous exhaustion off his brother's face. Dean doesn't look at Sam, but he smiles. It's faint and it's tired, but it's real. He's heard.

For Sam, he will keep fighting.

Zachariah doesn't know he's already lost. "Think about it, Dean. We can offer you _so much_. Anything, everything you've always wanted. We can bring back everything you've lost."

"I think… There is something you could give me." Exhaustion hangs heavy in Dean's words, and Zachariah brightens, barley reigning in his triumph.

"Anything, Dean," he says benevolently. Compassionately.

Dean grins down at Sam and summons the last of his will. "I'd love your head on a silver plate. That would be ideal, but of course I'll take china or plastic if that's what you've got laying around Heaven…"

Dean ducks, hauls Sam to his feet, and they are running from Zachariah's temper, running from the power that sucks and drags at their legs and hurtles missiles towards their heads.

It's later, when they're safe, that Dean collapses into the passenger seat of the Impala and Sam goes white with horror because there's only one reason Dean would let his brother drive right now, and it's directly related the spreading black patches on his jacket.

Sam hates Zachariah. Sam hates every fucking nihilistic sanctimonious _bastard_ flitting around above him and Dean, toying with their lives and their minds, offering and taking away in the space of a single, holy breath.

OOO

And then Sam found out he'd been wrong, and really _hate_ was the feeling when Uriel raised a hand to smite a thousand people because it was _easy_. Hate was when Castiel stood, staring, silently judging and condemning, and the one he was condemning was Sam and Sam's choices, made to save people, and not his fucking angelic brothers who wanted to blow the whole goddamned world to kingdom come…

OOO

… it's when they've done something so fucking _wrong _and the whole world is going to shit and Zachariah is laughing, laughing…

OOO

… when Cas is standing there, bleeding from a dozen slashes, impassive face contorted into something between emotional agony and a terrifyingly still sadness, and it's still not enough, it's never enough but it's enough for now…

OOO

…when Dean is under the car crying and pretending like he's not, and Sam can't do anything because to acknowledge it will just make it worse and everything is just so goddamn _wrong_ and its God's fucking fault…

OOO

Castiel is there again, but Sam doesn't jump this time. Nor does Dean, engrossed in a news article about someone seeing Christ's image on a slice of toast.

"Hey Cas, I think someone ate your dad," he jokes without looking up. Sam isn't sure what alerted his brother to the angel's presence.

Castiel tilts his head quizzically, but does not comment.

"Got anything?" Sam asks, looking up from his computer.

"No. I have not… 'got' anything."

Dean snorts. "Guy ate it before he even took a picture. Said it was "a blessing from the lord" and crap. "Sounds like the real reliable type."

Sam nods and looks back at his screen. "Nothing on our end either. Some omens, but that's pretty much par for the course at this point." He lets out a low breath, a bit frustrated, a lot tired.

Castiel looks only mostly confused at the colloquialism.

"Now what I'd like to see is Lucifer on a bagel," Dean interjects conversationally. "We'll burn him to a crisp and drown him in jam."

That gets a smile out of Sam, which is a start. Castiel doesn't know what his charges are smiling at, but he shifts companionably closer to their momentary happiness.

Sam doesn't believe in angels, but he believes in Dean and he believes in Castiel and he believes in these quiet moments. And maybe it's not enough, but it's a start.

They can save the world with a start.


End file.
